CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-datetime
Mike Thoma
Mike Thoma

Reputation: 24

Python Checking Date Format Failing to Work

My program takes in data in the form of:

LASTNAME|FIRSTNAME|GENDER|DOB

The first thing I do is use regular expressions to detect the delimiter and split the fields. I allow a space, comma, or pipe as a delimiter. I know which field is DOB and have printed it out to ensure I'm not dealing with the wrong field.

My try code is as follows:

try:
    #check if the fields are good
    fields = re.split(r'[ ,|]+', line)
except:
    #if not good: put it on the failure list
    flist.append(line.replace('\n', ''))

LastName  = fields[0]
FirstName = fields[1]
Gender    = fields[2]
DOB       = fields[3]

#one last try... make sure the DOB is good
try:
    datetime.datetime.strptime(DOB, '%m/%d/%Y')
except:
    flist.append(line.replace('\n', ''))
    raise ValueError("DATE NOT IN RIGHT FORMAT")

I have fed the program multiple lines, and the one in particular I'm feeding:

NAME|FAKE|M|09/20/1987

ValueError: time data '09/20/1987' does not match format '%d/%m/%Y'

I've printed out the fields and I've tried converting "DOB" to a string. I've tried appending the .date() to the end as well. I'm really not sure why it would be failing.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 147

Answers (1)

Wieschie
Wieschie

Reputation: 499

@jonrsharpe is right. You're trying to parse a MM/DD/YYYY string as DD/MM/YYYY. If all of your dates are in the same format, you should be using '%d/%m/%Y' as your format string.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions